Snow skiing is a sport in which the participant navigates down a snow covered hill by wearing boots that are attached to skis by bindings. People naturally have different stances as a result of their anatomy. Consequently it is beneficial to performance, safety, and comfort to allow the user to separately customize their fore-aft balance on the ski (hereinafter called “ramp angle”).
Pitch is defined as the height of the front relative to the rear of the boot. Because people's legs vary in length and flexibility, an individual's preference for pitch varies. Currently, boot pitch is determined by the boot manufacturer and can be customized to a limited degree by internal adjustments under the foot and/or by grinding the sole of the boot. Another method for altering pitch is disclosed by DeRocco et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,884,934. DeRocco et al disclose a ski having a binding mounting portion for angling the pitch orientation only of a boot relative to a ski.
Roll, also called cant, is defined as the height of the inner relative to the outer edge of the boot. Patent application Pub. No.: US 2007/0108734 A1 by Korich describes a novel apparatus and method for adjusting cant.
Height is defined as the distance from the base (bottom) of the boot to the base (bottom) of the ski. People's legs can differ in length, shape, etc., which means that the weight distribution between their feet can be unequal. Commercially available “plates” can raise the skier significantly off the snow. However, current art is not designed to equalize weighting between the feet. Grinding the base of the boot can create limited variation. U.S. Pat. No. 5,090,139 by Germann discloses a ski boot with a height-adjustable foot-bed.Germann's disclosure applies only to the modification of a ski boot and not of a ski. Germann teaches a ski boot with a height-adjustable foot bed wherein the foot bed adjustment may be made when fitting the foot to the boot but not thereafter.The ability to deal with ramp angle is important to a skier's performance, safety, and comfort. A need exists for a mechanism to allow alteration of the ramp angle, either separately or simultaneously with other parameters, which does not require modification of the specific boot of a user.
In the prior art, it is known to provide boots with internal adjustment means that allow adjustment of the fore-aft ramp angle between the heel support and the support for the ball of the foot thereof. Typically, such adjusting means are adjusted when the skier is being fitted to the boot to optimize the snugness and comfort of the interconnection between the foot and the boot and is done with the bottom of the boot toe and heel at the same height i.e., the floor of the ski shop. Once such adjustments are made, the fore-aft lean angle within the boot is set. One cannot later change this ramp angle without affecting the fit of the boot nor can the boot be changed from ski to ski for skis with different ramp angles.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,715,782 by Sosin, et al a method and apparatus is disclosed that allows a user to individually or simultaneously customize the pitch, roll, height, yaw, linear placement and lateral placement of his/her boots on his/her skis. This system allows the user to stand in a position while skiing that is closer to his/her natural position and to have the parameters of such a stance measured and quantified, thereby improving comfort, performance, and safety. As opposed to the limited variation in only some parameters described by current art, this invention allows significant variation in all individual parameters and simultaneous customization of all parameters. This invention has not been commercialized due to the cost and complexity involved.
The following additional prior art is known to Applicant:
U.S. Pat. No. 4,945,659 to DeMarchi et al. discloses a ski boot having an interchangeable sole portion for controlling global wedging angle of boot. The present invention differs from the teachings of DeMarchi et al. because once the separate sole portion has been chosen and the skier is wearing the boot and attached to the ski via the binding, it is not possible to change the fore-aft ramp angle.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,348,335 to Dasarmaux et al. discloses a device for adjustment of the longitudinal position of an alpine binding. Such a device is commonly employed on skis that are rented and permits adjustment of the spacing between the heel support binding and the toe support binding to accommodate to ski boots of differing lengths. The adjustment for different boot lengths unintentionally changes ramp angle but does not allow for improving the balance of the skier.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,474,321 to Pritz discloses a carrying plate for securing a ski boot on a ski. Pritz fails to teach or suggest adjustment of the fore-aft ramp angle.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,501,483 to Stepanek et al. describes a ski binding toe unit design that includes an “automatic gap adjustment” feature that is described in more detail below. My present invention, in alternate embodiments thereof, contemplates an improvement that includes structure or parts incorporated into a ski binding such as that disclosed by Stepanek et al. Stepanek et al. fail to disclose any means for adjusting the fore-aft ramp angle of a skier.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,538,271 to Abondance discloses a plate for mounting a boot binding on an alpine ski that reduces the rigidity of the ski in the area where the boot is mounted. Abondance fails to teach or suggest any means for adjusting the fore-aft ramp angle of the skier.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,538,356 and 5,560,634 to Challande et al. describes a ski binding toe unit design that includes a “manual gap adjustment” feature that is described in more detail below. My present invention, in several embodiments thereof, contemplates an improvement that includes structure or parts incorporated into a ski binding such as that disclosed by Challande et al. Challande et al. fail to disclose any means for adjusting the fore-aft ramp angle of a skier.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,575,496 to Luitz et al. discloses a binding unit between a boot and an item of sports equipment that includes an adjusting device manipulated by the end of a ski pole to allow adjustments of the binding unit in the longitudinal direction. Luitz et al. fail to teach or suggest any means allowing adjustment of the fore-aft ramp angle of the skier.
There is also a segment of the retail market that sells integrated ski-binding systems to skiers. On many of these systems, the binding is not attached to the ski with screws, but by various other means such as sliding the binding onto rails or tracks integrated into the ski construction. In these cases, a prior art method of installing ramp angle wedges or shims is not feasible.
Due to airline baggage fees and personal preferences an increasing number of skiers choose to rent skis, and/or “demo” various retail models before they buy. Due to the time, labor and cost of installing ramp angle wedges, ramp angle rentals are not available, yet they are critical to the performance of the ski/binding/boot system. As most first time skiers rent, this is one of the reasons that currently only 16% of the first time US skiers ever ski again.
Due to the above problems and limitations on installing ramp angle wedges, a small percentage of ski shops and skiers prefer to permanently grind or plane the bottom toe and heel sole portions of the boot. This method is known as “sole planing”. Unfortunately, sole planing is often an imprecise operation when done by ski shop employees and requires the use of potentially dangerous machinery. Because it is irreversible, a mistake can ruin an expensive pair of boots. It requires that the boot toe and heel sole portions be built back up to meet International Standard ISO 5355 for boot sole thickness and shape dimensions. Even if a sole planning is done for one ski/binding combination, it will be wrong for other ski's binding combinations. As has been demonstrated, heel toe height can vary by as much as 10 mm from one ski/binding to another.